Heat exchangers particularly in the form of a radiator when used on vehicles that are operated in rough terrain, such as on earthmovers, tractors and the like, are subject to core clogging when operating in areas where large amounts of dirt, dust and debris, such as leaves, twigs, grass and the like, are airborne due to the working of the terrain by the vehicles. Under these conditions, the conventional single core heat exchanger frequently becomes clogged with the debris and its effective cooling is materially reduced.
Several systems have been adopted and tried for cleaning the debris from the radiator cores without the need for shutting down the equipment to make physical cleaning of the radiator possible. One such system calls for mounting screens on the upstream side of the radiator cores, which screens can be cleaned automatically or manually. This system permits a certain amount of debris to go through the screens, eventually plugging the cores.
A second well-known system provides for the fan on the vehicle being reversible so that in addition to drawing air through the radiator, the fan can be reversed and will act as a blower for blowing air back through the radiator, presumably to flush the debris from the fins and from the radiator core.
A third system is to provide a folded core heat exchanger whereby the core of the heat exchanger is divided into a plurality of smaller cores or sections which cores or sections are angularly mounted with respect to each other across the front of the engine to provide a plurality of V-shaped troughs into which the cooling air is drawn. Gaps are provided between each core at the apex of the V-shaped troughs through which air is continuously bled carrying with it the debris from the surface of the cores. This system functions less than desirably in requiring extra air flow to accomplish the cooling required. The additional air flow requires increased fan power and produces increased noise levels.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems as set forth above.
According to the present invention, a heat exchanger has at least one cooling core pair with each cooling core having first and second opposed sides and first and second edges. Means are provided for maintaining adjacent cores of a core pair angularly oriented one from the other. The first edges of the core pair are spaced one from the other. Closure means is provided for controllably opening and closing the space between said first edges of said core pair.